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The worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must learn that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers

Aleksandra Michajlovna Kollontaj was born in St. Petersburg in 1872 and died in Moscow in 1952.

She was a Russian revolutionary who after the Revolution of October 1917, when the Bolshevik party came to rule the country, served as minister. She was the first woman in the history oh humanity to be appointed to this position.

In such a role she worked and succeeded in granting women the right to vote, in establishing kindergartens and systems for ensuring assistance during the maternity period. Kollontaj was one of the founder of the Zenotdel, an agency designed to promote the participation of women in public life. Thanks to her work Russian women gained the right to vote and to be elected the right to divorce and to abort.

Kollontaj was also married for a short period of time during her youth and was a mother. She was throughout her entire life author of books and pamphlets that promoted communism and equality between men and women.

Cleopatra was born in 69 BC at Alexandria of Egypt. Her father was pharaoh Photolomy XII. She lived in a period of time that saw the creation and expansion of the Roman Empire. Her history was told century after century by historians and in our days by Hollywood. The most known version of the story of her life is the one of Plutarch. He speaks of a beautiful and dangerous (for Rome) queen who put the Roman Empire to her knees by seducing, first one of the most powerful man of history, Julius Caesar, and then one of his strongest lieutenant Marc Antony.

Now we have to remember that the story of Cleopatra has been written by her roman contemporaries, that were also her enemies, while everything written from the Egyptians during her reign has been lost. In fact Cleopatra’s Alexandria is at the moment under the Mediterrenian seas. On the other hand the Arab historians who lived after her death, instead, paint a very different portrait from the Roman one.

They tell of a wise queen who liked to read and foster cultural and artistic progress. In the Arab stories one cannot find any mention to her physical appearance. In absence of any direct Egyptian source ( we don’t even have a certain portrait or a statue of her) is difficult to separate the fiction from the reality that ‘s why Cleopatra is probably become a legend.

The facts are: she belonged to a Greek lineage of pharaohs who came to rule Egypt after the conquest of the country of Alexander the Great in the IV century BC. These Greek pharaohs adopted Egyptian costumes and in particular the cult of life after death and the cult of the pharaoh representing the divinity on Earth. But not all of the Greek Pharaohs adopted for example the Egyptian language and during their reigns revolts busted the region. Cleopatra tried to stay closer to the population by adopting their language, fighting the corruption, protect the commercial exchanges with the Arabs on the caravan route, that went from the Nile to the Red Sea, and, as said above, by fostering the Arts. For example she rebuilt the Alexandria Library that was the biggest in the world before a fire destroyed it and she was the first to exploit a porphyry quarry to embellish her palace. The same stone was to be used in the following years by the Romans for their statues.

She became queen at the age of 18. At the time Rome was conquering country after country. At the age of 21 she started a relationship with the Roman chief Julius Caesar.

We don’t know if her choice was based on love or ambition. The point is that she had a child from Caesar to whom she gave a roman name Caesarion. Julius Caesar didn’t recognize the child but brought him and Cleopatra to Rome reserving them the highest honors. The reason why Caesar didn’t recognize Caesarion is unknown but we can imagine that Rome was a dangerous place for the baby as many were against the union between Cleopatra and Caesar fearing the end of the Republic and the beginning of a monarchy. Actually Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. and Cleopatra fled to Egypt. She continued to see her son as the heir of Egypt and Rome together as testified by the inscriptions on the Dendera temple that she has it built to show Caesarion as the future governor of the reign.

In the meanwhile the Roman Empire was split in two parts. The West under Octavian the nephew of Caesar who declared himself the true heir of the dead chief. The East was under Marc Antony lieutenant of Caesar who supported the son of Cleopatra as heir of his former general.

Cleopatra entered in an alliance with Marc Antony, and also in a relationship from which were born 3 children. The couple finally was defeated next to Actium in Greece by Octavian, and they both preferred to commit suicide than to be brought to Rome as slaves.

Marc Antony decided to die in a roman way, with a sword. Cleopatra chose to die by a bite from a cobra, a sacred animal in Egypt, protector of the country and its pharaohs.

Cleopatra was a proud woman and an ambitious mother who lived and died for preserving the traditions and independence of her country through her son.

“All I want is education and I am afraid of none”
Malala is a young girl of 16 years old but she is already an inspirational figure known the world over.
She comes from the valley of Swat, Pakistan. Her father was her greatest source of inspiration and the staunchest supporter.
At 11 years old Malala wrote a diary for the BBC describing the daily troubles she would encounter while going to school. In 2012 she was shot point blank in the face for being a supporter of girls education. So far she has won numerous awards for her endeavors, a Nobel Peace Prize included. She is in charge of the Malala Fund a non profit organization which advocates a greater access to education for girls in Pakistan and all over the world.

Malala started her efforts in behalf of education when terrorists invaded her country. She remembers that schools were blasted, music and cinema were prohibited and women were banned from going around freely. 2 options were then available to her, she recalls. Silence and cohabitation with terrorism or speaking out and die. She chose the second and was actually shot in the face. Once recovered she found many supporters in her country and outside. So began to speak about women education everywhere. The subjects of her thoughts are women: from the little girls in Pakistan forced to labour to Indian women in a widespread danger of sexual abuse.
She now acknowledges that women are “facing issues” in every country, not only the developing ones, but also in the modern states. The first time she toured the West, was astonished at the sight of women walking alone along the streets, sitting in parliaments, or having a job they like. Nonetheless she is of the opinion that although gender equality is written in laws, it is still not complete in terms of practical life. In parliaments women are a small percentage, CEOs are mostly men sexism is more subtle and hidden and at the end women are not given the roles that they deserve.
Solution can be achieved by starting to speak about these problems. Malala in convinced that words are a powerful tool for driving change.

Shami Chakrabarti is mostly known for being the director of Liberty, a British organization cross party-no party, that promotes the defense of human rights. Chakrabarti is at Liberty since 2001; ever since she has been declaring that human rights in western societies specifically in Britain are under heavy pressure; a growing hostile feeling is spreading everywhere as a consequence of mass immigration, not to mention the state of fear caused by the tragic events of 2001. Governments have tried to work around human rights and Liberty counteracted by guarding them through influencing the public debate, and raising awareness around them.
In this attempt Liberty under the guide of Chakrabarti intervened in parliamentary work and provided free legal advise and assistance. Chakrabarti made clear that human rights ( that are freedom from slavery, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, of speech, association and belief became object of the Law after WW2 in an answer to the horrors of the Holocaust. The mindset that made the Holocaust possible is still present and people can not afford to lose sight of the potential consequences. Fighting for human rights means fighting for values that apply to everybody, they are not for citizens but for human beings; more so considering that today the world is shrinking and interconnected. People have bashed the package of human rights but everyone believes in it when they need protection. It is necessary to resist political cynicism if one believes in freedom.
Chakrabarti thinks also that gender justice is a human right issue; she endorses women empowerment and thinks that women must be more confident and challenge sexism through sarcasm or formal complain.

My mom was a teacher – I have the greatest respect for the profession – we need great teachers – not poor or mediocre ones

Condoleeza Rice

Condoleeza Rise was the first African American woman to serve as Secretary of State in the United States.

Before serving as Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice served as National Security Advisor all in the George W. Bush Administration (2000-2008).

During these years she championed the so called Transformational Diplomacy which was about building democratic governments throughout the Middle East as she considered the September 11 attacks as rooted in despair and poverty.

She was born in segregated Alabama in 1954. She suffered many times discrimination but said more than one time that she didn’t let it limit her horizon.

Rice is convinced that the American nation is held together by the belief that it does not matter where you are coming from it matters where you are going; it does not matter the past but the future.

She has always insisted on the empowering and transformative strength of education as a mean for men to get on on the social ladder.

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Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet

Maria Teresa of Calcutta

In 1910 Maria Teresa was born in Skopie (Albania). In 1928 she moved to Ireland and became a nun.

A year later she moved again to India. Here she would have remained for many years as a teacher in a college for girls only.

In 1948 she founded the missionary of charity which in the next 50 years would have became an organization with branches all over the world, with supporter from every religious field as well as laymen.Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin”.

The organization helped people with terrible diseases and also poor people we belong to the world living not for ourselves Make us worthy, Lord, to serve those people throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy.; for this Maria Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Price.

She died in 1997 obtaining the title of Blessed Maria of Calcutta from the Church of Rome.

Marie Cure was born in 1867 in Poland. In 1871 she left Poland and went to study mathematics physics and chemistry at the University of Paris. During the time of her studies she endured many hardships, also hunger: “[…] I was taught that the way to progress is neither swift nor easy[…]”.

With the help of her husband Pierre, she was able to conduct pioneering studies on radioactivity, a term that was invented by her, after which Curie gained a Nobel Prize. After the death of her husband in 1906, Marie Curie took his place as Professor of general Physics at the University of paris, and became the first woman to take this job. The continuing research lead her to find 2 new elements: polonium and radio and for that Curie was awarded with a second Nobel Prize in 1911.

During the first World War she introduced the use of X-Rays into medicine, and organized 20 mobile x-ray stations and 200 stationary.

She was restless and wholly committed to her research being convinced that: “you cannot build a better world without improving individuals”.